Sea & Sky: Deathly Quiet
Posted on 25 Mar 2023 @ 5:44pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Lieutenant JG Hannah Wagner & Chief Deputy Marshal: Ridge Steiner - FMS & Lieutenant Commander Cesar De La Fuente Ph.D. & Lieutenant Ethan Gunnarsen & Lieutenant JG Maxwell Tilmer
Edited on on 15 Oct 2023 @ 7:55pm
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Arrowclass Runabout USS Acamas, from Pathfinder to Korix
Timeline: MD09 0223 (immediately Following "Sea & Sky: The Briefing")
3542 words - 7.1 OF Standard Post Measure
Calliope pointed out where Tilmer could secure the Korinn computer core while behind her, Wagner was getting the casket squared away. Everyone else hauled in the rest of the gear and put it into stowage. The entire time Calliope was feeling better and better about requisitioning the Acamas. While it wasn't exactly spacious, there was still room enough for everyone to function as they loaded the equipment, and that was just the back of the runabout. With her packing list double checked she closed it out and took the walk down the center hall. There were a couple tiny bunk rooms to the sides, which made the Arrows great for longer trips, but shouldn't be needed on this journey unless someone just wanted to catch a nap while the rest of the team was on a wine and cheese tour. Could underwater folk even... drink? She wasn't sure that had ever occurred to her to ask and smirked at herself.
When she came to the cockpit, it was already being settled by Ethan and Caesar. She would have reflexively taken the co pilot seat, except there was an actual command chair and... she was in command. So she sat out her usual station and ceded it quietly to De La Fuente.
"How are we looking, Mr. Gunnarsen?" Calliope asked.
Suppressing the urge to peer curiously at the man sitting beside him, Ethan glanced up at the Commander’s question. “Everything’s up to par, ma’am. We’ll be ready to set out as soon as your people are settled in.” Bringing his attention back to his erstwhile co-pilot, Ethan took note of the Teal as well as his insignia. De La Fuente; he’d picked the name up fairly quickly from the many, recognizing a fellow auxiliary craft officer - if not the same vessel. “You’re from the Alexander, then, Commander?”
“I am,” Cesar replied with a friendly smile. “Admiral Sepandiyar asked me to come along on this mission. Where Alexander is going, there’s not much need for a Chief of Science,” he explained. On the one hand he was glad of the chance to be a science officer rather than on a combat patrol with the ship (at least he assumed that’s where they were) but he certainly missed his own quarters and his own friends. Not that these people weren’t good, salt of the earth Starfleet types. They just weren’t his people. At least not yet.
Calliope craned her neck to see how everyone else was settling into their stations.
The Trill Engineering kid popped out of the hall next and looked a little lost, which was quite a feat in a space this limited. Calliope silently pointed him to the engineering console on the left and Tilmer looked sheepish, if thankful for the aid. “The core is secure, ma’am!” He reported.
“I bet it is.” Calliope said. “Used the extra ratchet straps? Or just trusting the cargo net?”
Tilmer suddenly ran back to the rear compartment, jostling others in the narrow hall.
“That’s what I thought.”
Steiner hid a smile as the young officer rushed past, he turned right into the Tactical Analysis alcove, stowed his carbine and gear in a locker, then jammed himself into a seat. Between the suit, his gear belt and his big frame it was a bit of a squeeze. He shuffled around a bit to get settled, hopefully it would not be a long flight. He buckled the straps, then tapped his command codes into the panel and brought up the various tactical systems to familiarize himself with the craft’s offensive and defensive abilities. Not too dissimilar to those on the Van Buren Hendrix he was pleased to discover.
He cycled through things to get acquainted and adjusted the displays to his preferred layout. Satisfied all systems were operational, he checked on the automated torpedo magazine loadout. The stern tube had been loaded with a series of communications buoys, he activated the first one and ensured it had a data link with both the Arrow and the Pathfinder a couple of seconds later he got a corresponding .beep and a signal strength bar appear on the screen.
Settling in at the station with a scanner, Hannah laid her palm against the activation panel, and it obediently blossomed to life. “Lovely.” After a moment’s thought she input a set of parameters to look for, that corresponded closest to the lifesigns the Korinn would have emitted if she’d been alive.
Once Tilmer finally made it back to his seat at the Engineering station and was the last to strap in, Calliope keyed in the comm line to the Bridge. "Zahn to Bridge, the Acamas is mission ready. Standing by to launch. "
“Acamas, this is DeHavilland. You’re clear to launch. Good luck. Be safe. DeHavilland, out,” the Captain’s voice answered.
“Take us out, Mr. Gunnarsen.”
“Alright,” Ethan glanced over at De La Fuente. “Full exterior view,” he murmured - more to himself than as any command. He caught a glimpse of deep blacks, blues and other muted colors as the man’s hands moved over the console. With practiced ease, Ethan eased the Arrow backwards into a calculated turn, the short trek giving the systems the last few seconds they needed to acclimate before the nose came to face the gateway separating them from the outside. With a minute breath, he set the craft forward in a gentle lunge that took them through the barrier and into the emptiness beyond.
“Here we go,” Cesar muttered quietly, taking a deep breath. This was far more exciting than anything he normally got up to on the Alexander. He charted the navigational course for the pilot that would take them along the path that the probe had come from with the expectation that they would find something along the way.
“You ever get much practice flying underwater, Commander?” Even as he spoke, Ethan could feel the slight thrill that usually settled in at the beginning of a flight.
“Actually never have gone down in a craft. All my underwater experience has been in an EVA or SCUBA rig,” he answered conversationally. He smiled back at Gunnarsen, though. “Looking forward to this.”
The planet from above had been a bright blue color. But maybe it had been a trick of the atmosphere because as they got closer, things changed. As they cut easily enough through the upper atmosphere and the cloud layers, steady rain was washing over the runabout. That the initial visual was so blue now seemed a farce. With the clouds hiding the light, everything below was grayed out. The ocean they approached wasn’t a healthy blue or green or even deep purple like Trill’s famous Violet Sea. It was a dull yellow green, almost ill brown color. Gunnersen had them angled for a dive towards the goal coordinates in search of the origin of the probe launch. But since they couldn't get a picture of the ocean floor from orbital scans, they were going to follow the lay of the land.
“Hold that thought,” Ethan drawled as he prepped the shuttle for descent. “Scans show no immediate obstructions or threat,” he announced as the trajectory shifted down. “All the same, be prepared for a rough entry.” It wouldn’t be as hazardous as entering still waters, but the storm-whipped waves weren’t going to be a treat, either. With that, the Acamus swept down through the atmosphere until it sliced through the foam-whipped surface of the water. The shuttle vibrated in protest until the systems adjusted to the requirements of the aquatic surroundings. Everything seemed to be working, but Ethan kept an eye on the sensors until everything came back clear. “Alright, we’re in.”
As they hit the water, she looked to the comm signal strength. They didn't have to go far before the strength dropped. “Marshal, please release the first signal buoy.”
Steiner held the arms of his chair as the Arrow bucked a little as it dived into the ocean, then leaned forward and tapped the launch tab.
“Buoy One away,” Steiner called out, launching the first device from the stern tube. There was a brief rumble in the floor as it left the launcher. He tapped in a couple of commands. “Setting station keeping depth to ten meters below the surface.”
He tapped again and checked the readouts ”Re-testing data link, all good. Buoy One is active, in position and data link is established with Pathfinder.”
“ Pathfinder this is Acamus First buoy is set and online. Sending our depth readings and fixing a data link. Working on getting some photos for the travel log— Mr De La Fuente, are we reading anything on sensors? Extend visuals as far as we can. Sync it with UV and heat, any radiation signals. Get us some sonar on the speakers.”
“Nothing to see here, Commander,” Cesar answered, piping the sonar to the speakers. “Scattered marine life. Salinity similar to what we found on the abandoned station,” he explained as everyone now heard the occasional ‘ping’ of the sonar echoing out.
The first visuals were just dirty shallows, with refuse floating near and far. There was a single school of fish, though they seemed to be sluggish and confused. Not the quick darting mass of coordinated creatures that might commonly be seen. As they continued further, there were faint forms emerging from the haze.
“We’re still in the epipelagic zone, but I’m picking up something on visuals,” De La Fuente announced, adjusting the forward display to show it through the slightly murky water. The forms were half domes, swaying slightly in the waters, dull, overgrown with some kind of sludge and trailing seaweed.
Ethan frowned as the scanners refused to give him any useable navigation assistance. Even accessing outside visuals provided little improvement. “We’ll have to switch to sonar if we don’t want to run into anything,” he explained, leaning toward De La Fuente’s side to activate the system. “It may get a bit louder in here, but shouldn't be too bad.” At least, he hoped not.
The sonar just produced ghostly reverberations of the runabout’s running sound reflecting off the domes. The sound reminded Calliope of someone trailing their fingers on the lips of wineglasses, off key with one another.
“I keep expecting something to jump out and say ‘boo’,” Hannah muttered to herself. “But there’s nothing of significance. There’s nothing but the eerie silence of the water. I would say, based on the coral growth from the top of the structures that this place has not been maintained in 15-20 years.” That was assuming of course that these people had a value implicit in the cleanliness of their structures. They could want them to blend into the sea floor, and leave them thusly to overgrow. It seemed counter to her assumptions about the species, but…again…she was guessing here.
As they continued, the water around them darkened. Calliope noticed the signal strength was dropping again. “Looks like we’re approaching the twilight zone. Steiner, put us up another float.”
Steiner tapped the launch tab. “Buoy Two away,” Steiner called out, sending out the second device. “Station keeping depth to One Hundred Twelve meters below the surface. Data link, all good, chaining in with Buoy One.”
At first it was just dark. The running lights illuminated what looked like a dead forest on the floor below, ghostly forms dead and broken and littered with refuse.
“Perhaps, this is part of why they sent the distress call. This level of ocean should be teeming with invertebrate and microbial life, and there is nothing. I’m surprised that any larger organisms are managing to survive in this soup, no matter how resilient they are. I wonder what happened here, to injure this world so.” Hannah’s question was rhetorical, but worth keeping in the backs of their minds.
Some new structures seemed to be emerging from the haze. They were anchored to the seabed, and while they employed a lot of rounded and dome shapes, they had a more modern, industrial age look to them. As the runabout began to pass through them, Calliope thought they could have been in a lunar city, with the twilight darkness and all of the grand environmental domes… just underwater. By comparison, the first city now seemed like a lazy older village— cottages in the sunlight. The real activity must have been racing through this jungle of architectural wonders, this twilight city. But like the buildings above, these two held no visible activity and seemed to host overgrowth as well. An occasional lantern fish darted past, the bioluminescent pin light in the vastness like a streaking star, accentuating the otherwise vast loneliness.
“Any sign of the Korinn?” Calliope asked.
“Negative. This area has been deserted just as long as the previous settlement we saw, it seems they migrated at roughly the same time if the wear on the stone and corals is the same. I’ll take a water sample for more precise measurements.” Hannah said as she stared out into the water which hid so many treasures. “Almost makes me wish I was an archeologist.”
“Alright then.” Calliope crossed her legs and sat back. “Mr. Gunnarsen, let's see if there’s more below.”
“Aye, Commander,” he murmured as he eased the shuttle lower into the murk. ToDe La Fuente he added, “Could you see if we can light the space up more without too much glare?”
“I do not like this,” De La Fuente declared solemnly after a silence had fallen between them all, broken up only by the choir of terminal commands and the steady ping of the sonar. Cesar amplified the exterior lighting to illuminate more of the space around them than before, still seeing sea floor not all that far away even if they were now passing out of the mesopelagic and into the bathypelagic zone.
“Commander Zahn… I drew some sea water into one of the collectors as we entered the water and have been doing spectral analysis. I’m reading significant toxins in the water. Not naturally occurring. I’m reconfiguring scanners to read it real-time…” he said, finishing that command and now showing it on everyone’s terminals. He shook his head, “Something’s poisoning this water,” he said.
“Color me surprised…” Calliope muttered, watching the false imaging as DLF showed the level of pollutants distributed throughout which were causing all the scanning and comms trouble. There were a variety of poisons and chemicals. After seeing all of the die off along the way, she’d have been shocked if it was just one something doing the poisoning. But there was a particular highlighted set of pollutants De La Fuente was sequencing which were messing with scans. “If they had to abandon their cities, the whole planet is probably similarly afflicted.”
Cesar leaned forward in his seat and looked through the glass at a sea bed that had the looks of a place that had once been used in abundance but was now abandoned. “This looks like a graveyard,” he said solemnly, looking over at Gunnarsen and then back at Calliope. “Is it possible that there’s nothing left? That what we received was automated?”
“Maybe. But something did launch just recently, this much we’re sure of, so I’m keen to at least lay eyes on the source. Let’s keep going”
Steiner popped out several more buoys, they had loaded seven, he had placed five so far. “I’m down to two buoys, whatever is going on out there it’s so thick it’s just scattering our data-link signals.” He called forward “And it’s getting worse the deeper we go, maybe another three.. Perhaps five hundred meters and we will be out of buoys”
He had one eye on the sensor feed from their path. “We go down that drop-off and I’m pretty sure we’ll be out of range”
Calliope tapped her fingers on her armrest, absorbing that news. “Thank you Marshal.” She hadn’t anticipated a dive this far. The Runabout could more than handle the pressure, of course. It was just seeming less and less likely there was anything to find in the deepest dark…
“If we proceed any deeper, then we will not find what we’re looking for.” Hannah said. “If she is a typical specimen of the species, then this depth is the limit that her air bladders could tolerate without collapse.” Wagner was chewing on her lip now in a clear show of nerves that she’d prefer everyone just ignored.
“Understood.” Calliope said. In terms of a life sign, they were coming up empty handed and she didn’t want to go home without something to report. At least the launch site. “But we came this far into the deep, so we’re going to be sure. Gunnersen, take us out over the drop off. Let’s at least have a look beneath us with the sonar….”
“Commander. I have something,” De La Fuente called out suddenly, a bit more enthusiastically than anyone else had been thus far. “Mr. Gunnarsen, here, can you angle us forward to have a look.” As requested, the craft turned to port and the forward lights illuminated an outcropping just off of the drop of that was clearly a silo of sorts for a vessel and unlike everything else they’d seen, this looked brand new and recently maintained. Further down the sides of the cliff were obvious support structures, all powered down but one.
“I’m reading a power signature,” Cesar smirked. “It’s faint… but it matches the probe and the abandoned station,” he sighed, glad that this wasn’t a tomb as he’d feared. Someone’s home, we just have to find out where they went. He looked over at Gunnersen, “Do you think we can get the shuttle in th-,” he started to asked before there was a sudden alert from his station.
Calliope sat forward, eyes focused on the new flashing and buzzing. The pattern indicated the detection of a repeating signal on a communications frequency. Her instinct serving in ops was to answer the phone. “What's paging us?”
“We’re… being hailed?” Cesar said, cocking his head to the side as he read it. “Or rather… being directed to these coordinates,” he said, sending them to the CoNN and Commander Zahn.
As they continued to sink lazily into the maw of the drop off, Calliope considered. The coordinates were a fair hoof away— flipper away?— but were easy enough to mark from the data given. It seemed innocent enough. “They sent us a message, we found their launch site, which is what they were hoping for, and left us instructions to meet them.” Calliope folded her fingers. It would be faster to surface and then take airspeed to the given mark, but they were here to explore and more time in the water would mean more data on the pollutants and whatever imaging and sonar they could collect as they went. “Alright. Set us a course at a safe enough cruising speed so we don’t bump into any underwater mountain tops along the way.”
“Do we have range with the remaining buoys to reach that point from here?” Ethan was fairly certain he could pilot out, but it would be a calculated risk in his environment - nothing like any aquatic dives he'd ever performed.
Calliope thought back over how many she had requisitioned and how far they had come. “I’m not sure if—”
“Data-link with Buoy Seven is fluctuating” Steiner called forward, having launched the last two. “Signal strength is dropping…. And we're done! We are in the blind!”
With no more buoys to launch, Steiner got up and came forward to the main cockpit. He grabbed hold of a rail and looked forward through the screens, nothing out there but sludgy inky blackness illuminated only by the crafts forward lights.
Calliope watched the signal strength waning as they left their comms buoys behind.
“Acamas to Pathfinder, be informed, our data stream is about to be cut off due to the pollutant interference density. We’ve located the probe launch site and received an invitation to another site at the following coordinates. We are proceeding there with hopes of making contact with the Korinn. Acamas will send a sonar ping to the buoys as an all’s well confirmation every fifteen minutes. Hopefully that will get through.”
She waited a moment, imagining that there was something in the static return, but not being sure. The last bar dropped out and the link with Pathfinder went silent.
To go back and try to establish contact? Or forward to their purpose? Calliope shifted in her seat. The hot one. “Continue on course to the coordinates.”